Proverbs 25:6–7a
Saint Luke 14:1 & 7–14
Last Sunday’s Chicago Tribune featured an article about Leo Burnett who, in the midst of the great depression, started an ad agency. People scoffed, wondering about “the waste and extravagance of advertising,” in the midst of the biggest economic downturn of the 20th century.
Burnett ignored the skeptics and over the years gave us some of the most memorable commercials in the history of television. Tony the Tiger’s proclamation that Frosted Flakes were “Great!” came from them. The creative minds at Burnett made the Minnesota Valley Canning Company into a household name by posing their mascot “smiling broadly and holding a corncob like a barbell” like a very happy green fellow and eventually re-branding the entire corporation, The Green Giant Company.
For me the best of the best was the Miller Lite, “more taste lest filling” campaign whose drummed up controversy lives on until this very day. And of those commercials one stands out as a classic. It is Mr. Baseball, Bob Uecker's “I must be in the front row commercial” for Miller Lite!
The premise is simple and begins with Uecker claiming that one of the best things about being an ex-big leaguer is getting freebies to the game. “All I did,” he says pulling a ticket out of his pocket, “was call the front office and bingo.”
Almost as soon as he sits down an usher approaches and informs him, “You’re in the wrong seat buddy.” to which Uecker says, “I must be in the front row.”
In the next scene we see him in the upper, upper deck of Dodger stadium about as far away from the action as one can be and still be in the ballpark.
In real life Bob Eucker was an unassuming, humble guy who made constant fun of his lack of ability as a player, once saying, “Sporting goods companies pay me not to endorse their products.”
Eucker and the Milwaukee Brewers went along with the gag to the extent that there are two statues erected in the honor of their long-time broadcaster. One statue is in a prominent place outside of the ballpark and the other is way up there “behind the last row of section 422 in the upper deck.”
In getting a place of prominence and a place of humility, it seems to me, the Brewers said that while he may have always wanted to sit in the front row Eucker was still perfectly happy sitting in the back.
Jesus attended a dinner party once where it looked like a lot of the people there thought they
deserved to be in the front row.
We might be feeling pretty good about ourselves remembering that Jesus “lived in an honor/shame society where everything someone did was to accrue honor for you and your family’s name and avoid shame. At whose house you were eating and in which particular spot you were sitting mattered a [great] deal. Honor only meant something if it was publicly recognized; that is, if other people saw you do something honorable or witnessed honor conferred upon you. Likewise, shame was so damaging precisely because everyone else agreed that you were of less value.”1
There can’t be anybody here who thinks this practice has died out. Just try organizing a wedding banquet and discovering that the only places left for the people the bride calls Aunt Bertha and Uncle Hermann, but who are really third cousins twice removed, are at the very back of the banquet hall near the swinging doors to the kitchen at the back of the hall. Do this and one must gird themselves and be ready for the dear couples wrath at being embarrassed like this “after all we’ve done for you.”
Jesus sees and notices, but Dr. Fred Craddock warns:
The human ego is quite clever and, upon hearing that taking a low seat may not only avoid embarrassment but lead to elevation to the head table, may convert the instruction about humility in a new strategy for self-exaltation. Taking the low seat because one is humble is one thing; taking the low seat as a way to move up is another. The entire message becomes a cartoon if there is a mad competitive rush for the lowest place, with ears cocked toward the host, waiting for the call to ascend.2
Jesus does not offer a divinely approved way for a person to get what he or she wants.
Jesus is not offering a lesson on humility, or how to finagle you way into the front row, he is telling us how things are and should be for people who claim to be members of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is telling us that the secret for those of us who want to proclaim the reign and rule of God is to let everybody in and don’t worry about where they or we sit.
Go out into the streets, Jesus says, and "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you...”3
Make those people who are worried about who they are sitting with and where they are sitting, Jesus seems to be saying, if I hear him correctly, dine with everybody and anybody who wants a little lunch. Maybe they won’t come. Maybe they will choose to stay home and pout or complain about the quality of the feast, or that they have to eat with the riff-raff from the wrong side of the tracks. That’s their problem not yours, Jesus says, because they will be missing something.
Unfortunately, the today’s Gospel reading ends one verse too soon. It leaves out the punchline! For Saint Luke goes on to tell us that Jesus’ little admonitions triggered a response from one of the guests: ‘How fortunate is the one who gets to eat dinner in God’s kingdom!’”4
That’s us! We’re the fortunate ones who have been invited to the feast! We’re the ones who Jesus has called to gather around his table! We are not onlookers anymore because we all have been invited to dine with Jesus in his good rule and reign.
We’re not the ushers who are checking tickets to see if one person is not in their proper place, but neither are we the disinterested bystanders in the little dust up between Jesus and his hosts.
We’ve been invited to the feast! We are the fortunate ones! We are the ones who are the recipients of God’s great grace. What we do with our good fortune is up to us.
I know I have told you this story before and I also know that I have told you that when a preacher starts to repeat himself or herself too often they have been around too long but this is too good to resist because I think I might have seen this gospel being played out in some small way while worshipping one Sunday at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.
The cathedral is, as one might expect from the Episcopalians, a first-class operation. It has a history of great preaching, magnificent music, and liturgical pageantry that even on an ordinary summer’s Sunday would put most church’s worship on festivals to shame. In other words: They process in everybody and anything that is not nailed down.
They also have a strong commitment to social justice and social outreach that feeds the poor, lobbies for the oppressed, and seeks to serve the least, the lost, and the lonely.
All the pageantry paled to something that happened at coffee hour following church when I caught a small glimpse of their care for everybody in person.
On the Sunday I was there about a dozen or so of the unhoused had congregated on the cathedral’s plaza before worship. One man in particular looked especially disheveled.
After worship there was a coffee hour on the plaza for the people who had attended. The usual was offered: coffee, tea, coffee cake, cookies, and juice for the children.
When things were winding down the bedraggled man slowly approached one of the tables as if he were working his way to the head table at a royal banquet or trying to sneak into the front row of the ballpark.
He started to reach for a piece of the well picked-over coffee cake when the well-dressed, well-coiffed woman serving said to him. “Oh! No! No! No!”
I gasped and the man pulled back but then the woman continued. “No! No! No!” she said again. “Those have been out far too long. They’re a little stale. You don’t want those. Let me get you some that are fresh.”
She reached behind her and grabbed another full tray of treats. She unwrapped the cellophane and placed the tray right in front of the surprised man.
“Take as many as you like.” She said. “We always have plenty. Enough for everybody!”
He filled his hands and even put some in his pockets for later. The woman smiled, so did I, and I must admit I felt a tear run down my cheek.
When the well-healed serve the downtrodden. When the outcasts and the insiders feast together. When it doesn’t matter who you know. When a homeless man is treated as well, and maybe even better, than the wealthiest person in the congregation. When all are welcomed, it is then, Jesus says, everyone in the great and promised kingdom “must be in the front row.”
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1. Philip Martin, “The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost,” A Sermon for Every Sunday (asermonforeverysunday.com, August 23, 2022)
2. Fred B. Craddock, Luke: Interpretation Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, , KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 177.
3. St. Luke 14:12-14. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
4. St. Luke 14:15. (MSG) [MSG=Eugene H. Peterson, in
\The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary English (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1995
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